Progress at Babysitters'

Spring Bank Holiday 97

by Clark Friend

Photo by Chris Grimmett

In blazing sunshine the Friday morning saw Simon Amatt, Graham
Christian, Chris Grimmett and Clark Friend up at the dig to persuade
some boulders in the floor that they should move. The quartet then
returned for punishment - shovelling the ballast for the new floor.

Saturday saw a mammoth effort clearing out the floor and lowering it by
approaching 3 feet. The arch way in the western side turned out to look
very promising, whilst another possible southerly-trending wall was
found in the eastern, sand-filled end.

CF then did a runner to watch
the Australian massacre leaving our three heroes to continue on their
own on the Sunday.

The entire easternside was lowered and the southerly
trend was found to be a large alcove. The western end still continued.
Monday saw CG & CF up at the dig (fools) to produce spoil in the hope
that GC would appear and that we could then operate the winch. This
happened and the floor was again lowered.

The total for the three days
was over 200 Grimmett buckets, representing a significant increase in
depth of the shaft to over 12.3m across a floor area of some 6.5 m x 1m.

Discussion over the Welsh name has landed upon the clover leaf shape of
the first parts of the shaft - essentially three sub-circular avens that
have coalesced - so, Pwll Meillion or Pwll Meillionen, depending upon
gender has been suggested. We need to consult Welsh speakers further on
this matter.